In 2013, a new organizational structure was introduced at K2. The most important elements are that

• all scientific staff at the department must belong to a research group
• Head of Department appoints and terminates research groups and approves their leaders
• the research group leader must report directly to the Head of Department
• the research groups will as a rule consist of a minimum of six persons and will be headed by faculty personnel (at least 50% position)
• the groups should have published at least five articles annually over the last three years

The purpose of the research groups is to conduct research according to the regulations, ethical guidelines, and the Environment, Health, and Security (EHS) requirements that apply at UiB.

The tasks are among others to

• stimulate good research and optimal publishing and dissemination practices
• coordinate funding of the research group’s activity
• contribute to building up the institute’s infrastructure and expertise
• make sure that any UiB technician associated with the research group is used optimally
• ensure that annual appraisals with technical and temporary staff take place
• make sure that the research group’s publications are registered according to UiB’s requirements
• be responsible for the members of the research group contributing in the department’s teaching tasks and research training
• distributing assets to those who have generated the funds
• participate in the extended management group after appointment from the Head of Department

It is now six years since this structure was introduced. After site visits during spring 2018, it became clear that adjustments are necessary due to natural retirement and changes in activity for some of the groups. We have therefore initiated a process to chane the composition of some of the research groups. Permanent scientific staff for relevant groups will be called. Key questions for discussions will be

• Are the size of the group according to the intention?
• Are the composition of the scientific staff appropriate?
• Are there tasks the group wants to take on which can be suited for a platform service at K2
• Are there educational challenges that can be improved by a change?
• Are there other groups that are appropriate for potential merging?

After a discussion with the relevant groups, some new groups will be formed and leaders appointed. Feel free to contact me by mail regarding input in this process.

Happy Hilydays!

The faculty day is fast approaching: June 13th where you can “Meet the best!”

Søren Falch’s junior and senior prize will be awarded and the Falch lecture 2019 is held by  Professor Maiken Nedergaard, University of Copenhagen who has conducted exciting translational brain research, including underpinning the importance of the glymphatic system and sleep for brain health!

More awards to be handed out: this year’s publication, this year’s PhD, this year’s research group, prizes for internationalization, outstanding dissemination and teaching. K2 has previously received several prizes, which K2s are being honored this year?

And apropos teaching; since the faculty promotes the new title of “Excellent teacher” (which will actually lead to a salary increase!), here are some career planning tips:

Complete the basic module in pedagogy that was scheduled within two years of hiring in your main UiB position (and finish the compulsory written task/paper), anyone else but me who feel hit by the time-squeeze….?)

Remember to record consecutively in your teaching-portifolio any teaching activites you are contributing to, including teaching administration activities (student rounds, skill sessions, preparing written materials, semester boards, creating quizzes, preparing /evaluating exams), retrospective registration will often lead to missing bits..

Something else however still related to teaching: bioinformatics. This is an increasingly important part of much of our activity; with different “-omics”, both understanding and practical use of different computer science methods are required when we have large datasets with eg genetic data or “big-data” in general. K2 has employed an “own” bioinformatician: Anagha Joshi, but as per. today we have not implemented any structured bioinformatic teaching in our study programs. CBU; Computational Biology Unit runs interdisciplinary (informatics / mathematics / chemistry / biology) research and teaching at various study programs/levels and has initiated a joint call to identify what might be coordinated bioinformatic teaching also in medicine/pharmacy (our study programs).

Can our students benefit from existing courses, for example during elective periods or research-line students/PhD students during other parts of the terms? Is there a need for postgraduate courses in relation to your research/subject area?

Anaghi and I are interested in input that we will convey further. Anaghi will gladly contribute to developing courses, but we want to avoid duplication with already existing courses and rather promote courses “across” study-diciplines.

It has now been two months since our conference at Solstrand, and since then I have gathered all your input from the group work on K2s strategy plan.

All your suggestions amounted to four pages of suggestions on what we should keep from our current plan, and what new goals and measures should be included in our new plan. Among other things, your suggestions were a separate goal on innovation at K2 as well as environmental goals and a green strategy. According to your input, we are still in want of meeting places across internal groupings, and career planning for our younger researchers. I am very grateful for your group work at Solstrand and your good input to the new strategy plan.

The new plan will act for three years from 2020 and part of the leader group at K2 will be involved in editing the existing plan. A draft for the new strategy plan will be distributed to all you after the summer. I hope you will take the time both to read and comment when I send it to you.

Best,
Julie

Last week, the Institute had a dialogue meeting with the medical faculty about the research education at the institute. It turns out that there is a minority of fellows who complete their doctorate within 4 years (36%), while a little more than half complete within 6 years (55%). K2 is thus below the average at the medical faculty, which is 65% (by the way, the target number of the Ministry of Education and Research is 80%). No one can say a lot about the reasons or what is more important, to finish the thesis within a given time frame or to deliver a work of good quality. But we do see that there are some fellows who struggle to finish their PhD.

It is always difficult to predict the results of experiments or clinical trials, but it is possible to make life at the end of the PhD period considerably less stressful if you start planning mandatory courses and dissemination points well in time. For example, MEDMET1 (Basic Course in Medical and Health Related Research) is one of the courses that is compulsory for all PhD fellows at the Faculty of Medicine, and it should be taken at the very beginning of the doctoral thesis to have some benefit. For those unfamiliar with MEDMET1, the purpose of the course is to provide an overview of the various stages of the research process including formulating a research question to be addressed, data collection, analysis methods, written and oral presentation of research data as well as research ethics. The course is given every semester. K2 also offers 8 different researcher courses under the umbrella of the two research schools at K2 (Research School in Clinical Medicine and Bergen Research School in Inflammation). Also the mid-term evaluation is compulsory and can be a good control checkpoint if one is on track with the project, and a possibility to ask for help. And remember that one can always contact Irene Hjelmås or me if there is anything one needs help with.

Last deadline for submitting your thesis before summer is set to 21.6., after that, the institute cannot guarantee that everyone who needs to sign anything is in place.

Lastly, I just want to mention that there will be a K2 PhD retreat also this year which I strongly recommend to participate in, not only to get to know your fellow PhD candidates, but not least for the feeling of not standing in everything alone, so stay tuned for more information!

I wish everyone a happy May 17!